olomew and his son Ferdinand. When he reached the Court he
found the King civil and outwardly attentive to his recitals, but
apparently content with a show of civility and outward attention.
Columbus was becoming really a nuisance; that is the melancholy truth.
The King had his own affairs to attend to; he was already meditating a
second marriage, and thinking of the young bride he was to bring home to
the vacant place of Isabella; and the very iteration of Columbus's
complaints and demands had made them lose all significance for the King.
He waved them aside with polite and empty promises, as people do the
demands of importunate children; and finally, to appease the Admiral and
to get rid of the intolerable nuisance of his applications, he referred
the whole question, first to Archbishop DEA, and then to the body of
councillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella's will.
The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreement
with Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should be
carried out. The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as a
matter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, was
determined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus a
wealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled. The
Admiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consent
to submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titles
and territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to. Of course the
council did exactly what the King had done. They talked about the thing
a great deal, but they did nothing. Columbus was an invalid and broken
man, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest to
gain time by discussion and delay--a cruel game for our Christopher, who
knew his days on earth to be numbered, and who struggled in that web of
time in which mortals try to hurry the events of the present and delay
the events of the future. Meanwhile Philip of Austria and his wife
Juana, Isabella's daughter, had arrived from Flanders to assume the crown
of Castile, which Isabella had bequeathed to them. Columbus saw a chance
for himself in this coming change, and he sent Bartholomew as an envoy to
greet the new Sovereigns, and to enlist their services on the Admiral's
behalf. Bartholomew was very well received, but he was too late to be of
use to the Admiral, whom he never saw again; and thi